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A step between fantasy and reality

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I wish I could shut off my brain. I wish I could stop thinking about how I will lose my best friend (a soul sister imo) because of covid. I've experienced a lot of loss in my life, but the thought of this wrecks me. Unless some miracle drug happens, her quality of life will continue to decline.

We joke about her inevitable death because of the way society has gone and the way she continues to catch covid (not her doing). But the truth is, she would be better off not suffering. We both know what's coming but it doesn't make it any easier to grapple with.

We talk about plans like there's an extended future for us to actually to run around the world and be delusional. And maybe there's a slim shot at that and I can only hope that comes to fruition but god, I hate thinking about this cause I know it could happen tomorrow.

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Took the Fujifilm to the farmers market and I cannot believe this is what it produced with just the kit lens.

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People You Meet

When you're young, you never realize the role friends and people you meet will play in your life. I'm still young, but I lived a lot of life already and it's interesting the way your relationships play out. Who sticks around, who is idling in the background but ends up being your best friend, who you get tight with for a few years, and who completely disappears.

I look back at the different eras of my life thus far and the people I used to be friends with..well maybe they weren't really friends. It's funny because in the moment you think these people are going to be with you your entire life. You're going to experience so much life together, see the world together, and make mistakes together. But that sometimes never comes. And while it's often sad, it's okay. Some people are only meant to be part of your history for a short time. They don't always mean great memories but I guess it's a hard pill to swallow sometimes that they are a part of your journey.

But then sometimes, you meet people later in your life after your formative years that completely change your life. I think a lot of people have friends who they met in elementary/high school/college that they speak to every single day and consistently hang out with. And they are friends with these people for decades. But that wasn't really my experience after my school years. I don't have many close friends from that time in my life - theres still a handful I speak to but they aren't that involved in my life.

But the last couple of years, there's been a few people who walked into my life that I don't think I could ever live without. One is somebody who has been in my orbit for the last decade, the other a coworker, another somebody I never thought I'd ever be friends with but yet, we have so much in common.

I think in a way these relationships healed a part of my inner child that never felt fully accepted and was constantly losing friends or growing apart from them. I can be my weird delusional anxiety ridden self and they join in the delusion. We talk every day, we send funny memes and videos to each other.

I wish these friends and I crossed paths/grew closer sooner but I'm glad to have them now. They make having to exist a little more bearable.

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[ID: Tweet by @PlaguePoems dated 2/17/23

“I know an old punk

whose pierced nose

remains hidden

behind the N95 mask

he dutifully wears

and when I ask him

if he still wears it

because his aesthetic

has never cared for norms

he replies that he wears it

because nothing is more punk

than giving a shit

about other people.”]

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Covid Killed My Career

I think about my life before Covid a lot and how different my goals and aspirations were. I was still in my 20s, pursuing a career in what I thought was something I could really succeed in. I worked on events (creating them and also working them), was traveling cross country and getting paid to do it, and I felt like I really had a future in whatever it was I wanted to do next.

I drifted away from working solely in the music industry and photography but I stayed in the entertainment world. I was on track to do a lot of great things. Of course, that was before Covid hit. My goals and wants out of life were different and the trauma I endured was far less.

During the peak of covid, I watched a lot of folks suffer. I sat every day wondering if my dad would come back ill or if I would need to call a lawyer to bail him out of jail because they were rounding up any folks who were "out past curfew". I watched as POC got harassed and people who looked like me get accused of causing Covid. I was terrified that I'd get attacked going grocery shopping, so I concealed myself. Back then, when people still wore masks, this helped in making sure people didn't know what I looked like. I spent a good two years having anxiety and panic attacks, watching each attack happen through social media and the news. I had to explain to my new job why I didnt feel comfortable going into their very tiny office. Of course, they hadn't even considered that aspect because they were all white.

I had to pivot my career. I left one toxic work place after the next. I needed to move out because my mental health was suffering staying in environments that continued to disregard my boundaries. At this point in time, the only thing I was concerned about was "I need to make money with a remote job and I need to move out." For a minute it was fine, then I got laid off because I "didn't fit the culture" aka I refused to go into the office and brought up issues/questions which unfortunately didn't go with the flow and I simply was not interested in constantly hanging out with my coworkers.

I'm now at a job that's tolerable. It's probably the best I'm going to have in this climate. Nobody masks really and I still have to go in 1-2 days a week but at least the commute isn't too far and they don't question where I work from. It's not ideal but it's okay for right now.

It's not safe for me to be traveling due to covid, racism, misogyny, etc. I just don't think sacrificing my health is worth that anymore. I'm watching my best friend die a slow death due to long covid. I have learned there is much more than hustle culture. I don't want to BE working but if I had to - I wish I could have continued pursuing my past life..before covid. I slowly watched people pull away because they wanted to go back living their normal lives. Even completely cut me off because they didn't want to hear about it anymore, or about human rights issues, or about how absolutely fucked we are or how society has given up on the disabled/immunocompromised community.

It's sad. But I mourn the career and life I could have had. The version of me that was different than what I am now. I think a lot of people may share in this notion. All this to say - none of this truly matters. A death to a career I would have had is small fry compared to what else is happening but it still makes me sad that it could have come to fruition if the world, our governments and the powers that be didn't fail us.